Defines Science

What is science? The question is a deceptively simple one. Science, we may say, is based upon observational facts. But observational facts, on close examination, prove to be remarkably ambiguous; indeed, it turns out that many "facts" can only be identified in light of some theory (Chalmers, 28-29). At a somewhat more sophisticated level, we may take the argument that science is distinguished by being based upon theories that are (at least in principle) falsifiable: a theory stands only so long as it is not shown to be wrong (Chalmers, 38ff). However, almost every active scientific enterprise is engaged precisely in reconciling facts that are inconsistant with theory, either by refining observation of the facts or by refining the theory. If falsiability were our standard, every scientific theory would be abandoned straightaway.

Alternatively, we might say that science is a branch of knowledge that is based upon the ability of its theories to predict outcomes, or to give reproducible results. Yet geologists, who again we would all think of as scientists, are unable to predict earthquakes or volcanic eruptions, and much less are they able to reproduce them.

Clearly, whatever science is, we are not able to define it in these simple ways. On one level, indeed, our definition is circular. In each of the above examples, we have started with a notion of science based upon some sense of what people think is, or is not, a science. We say that astronomers and geologists

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